Dear Harlan,
I read your response to the gentleman whose wife had one affair due to her best girlfriend's influence. You almost had it right with your comment about his needing to work on his marriage and not focus on their friendship. But you ruined your response when you said affairs were dirty, depressing and draining - perhaps some are, but some aren't. Unfortunately, I've had two affairs, and they didn't fit your description. I say "unfortunately" because I didn't plan for them to happen. I ended up in these situations because my marriage was substandard. On the surface, everything looks OK. We have the house, the kids, the jobs and my husband is very involved in community service. What's missing is the connection in our relationship. My husband is very busy with all his "responsibilities." He said he needs to do all this service because it makes him feel good. The problem is that it makes me feel alone, and a marriage isn't that easy to leave. He's a good man, but he just doesn't get it - and how do you fight community service? By the time he gets home, there is nothing left for us. I would like to think that my affairs were sort of unusual, as they were with men I had dated prior to my marriage and both lived out of state. One affair lasted 10 years. At one point, I was asked to change it from an affair to a marriage, but due to family circumstances, the timing was all wrong, but I still needed the affair. I've now been married to my husband for more than 30 years. I sometimes ask myself why I'm still here, and all I can figure out is that it is the illusion of the marriage and the hope that one day it will be what I want it to be. The problem is that the relationship that gets one into a marriage isn't the relationship that you have for life. By the time the relationship has changed, it's marriage, and how do you untangle it? Sometimes an affair is easier. It all boils down to the fact that if spouses don't spend time with each other, both will eventually find someone else, but no one leaves before the affair because a substandard relationship is better than no relationship.
Thanks for Listening
Dear Thanks for Listening,
I stand corrected - affairs aren't draining and depressing, just the marriages the people having affairs are hiding in. I find your note ironic, frightening and sad. It's ironic because you're so honest and vulnerable in your note, but clearly, not in your marriage. If you were you wouldn't have cheated and convinced yourself it was justified. I find it frightening to think that any wife would have so little respect for her husband and herself that she would be this miserable and feel justified to have an affair. Had you given him a chance to talk about it, he could have worked to fix it, or ended it. And that's the saddest part about this. I think it's profoundly sad that you are so afraid to be single that you have kept your husband in a marriage with someone who can't love him completely for 30 years, kept these secrets and kept yourself in a relationship that's so unfulfilling. In your words: "To be in a substandard relationship is better than not having any relationship" - I find that to be so sad. It must also be very draining.
